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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Tuesday complained it was battling high maintenance costs, outdated computers and poor connectivity.
According to the Commission, the aforementioned factors have been posing bottlenecks to the efficient National Identity Number enrollment process in the country.
Over 67 million Nigerians have been enrolled into the national identity database out of the NIMC’s projected 200 million, with the deadline slated for end of December 2021.
Director, Special Duties, NIMC, Mr Ibrahim Daniel, laid the complaints at the official meeting between the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Russian Software Trade House in Abuja.
The Director also solicited training, especially in the area of database management for NIMC staff.
He said, “There are a lot of things needed here. The first is to train and build the capacity of our staff, most especially those who work in the department of identity database.
“This bothers most on the issue of maintenance, particularly some of the servers and equipment there. Most of the time, we outsource to maintain them. It attracts a humongous amount of money. But if we have in-house trained staff on that, it would reduce the cost.”
He noted that the current database is based on the design of the Pakistanis.
“Most of the things installed there at the inception were not by Nigerians. Most of them are by the Pakistani national database. So, we need training for participants particularly for maintenance,” he said.
He added that a number of the enrollment computer devices are obsolete and need to be replaced.
“At the enrolment centers also, we have obsolete enrolment peripherals. Most of the desktops are outdated and need to be updated. We need high definition computers and some other peripherals that would fast-track the enrollment
“We have the issue of connectivity, that is, the network since it is not fast. There is a delay because of the large volume of enrolments that are coming in. It is not moving as fast as required and they are complaints and criticisms from the applicants. That is another critical area.”
Meanwhile the Commission has proposed
to spend N1.15bn on IT maintenance, training, software acquisition, connectivity and network projects, plus other related projects in 2022.
The budget shows a total expenditure budget of N52.76bn and personnel cost of N5.84bn
The Commission budgeted N1.41m for maintenance of office / IT equipment, N24.89m for training, and N13.5m for information technology consulting.
It also budgeted N557.31m for computer software acquisition, N143.25m for connectivity and network, N128.37m for renewal of maintenance support agreement for NIMS infrastructure.
N105.06m was budgeted for biometric capture equipment, N146.89m for backend and frontend system support while
N33.74m was budgeted for verification equipment.
